Books in the Cambridge Library Collection - Art and Architecture series

Published in 1847, this three-volume work surveys Christian painting and sculpture. The author, Alexander Lindsay (1812-80), an aristocrat who travelled extensively in Italy, strongly influenced art collecting, and his work on the Victorian construction of morals and artistic taste remains instructive.

This pioneering two-volume biography (1862) explores the genius of the groundbreaking Romantic landscape and historical painter and printmaker J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). In Volume 1, the author Walter Thornbury (1828-76) traces Turner's 'art life' from cockney prodigy to Royal Academician, and creator of such masterpieces as The Fighting Temeraire.

A fellow of the Institute of British Architects, Arthur Ashpitel (1807-69) edited and published this work in 1867. It is an insightful compilation of tracts, drawn from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on classical, medieval and modern architecture, masonry, carpentry, roofs and material strength.